America: the bizarre

Cycle-touring, Expeditions, Adventures, Major cycle routes NOT LeJoG (see other special board)
pwa
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Re: America: the bizarre

Post by pwa »

Pete Jack wrote:
TonyR wrote:
Pete Jack wrote:Would you extend that to tourist cycling through Skid Row or Florencia in LA? I agree with you in general but there are places you would be advised to stay clear of as a tourist unless accompanied by an experienced guide,
I wouldn't recommend a tour of Scotland to include East Kilbride either. I don't live far from Skid Row (the 'skid' refers to a chute they slid logs down about 120 years ago). The only cyclist I know who has come to harm in that area hit a manhole and fell off and broke his hip. The road surfaces around there were terrible. But lately the whole city is getting a lot more bike friendly. What's your point? Every biggish city on the planet has areas it's best to stay to stay away from. I once got my pocket picked in Valence, France. Does that mean the whole country should be avoided? In Normandy I had a gang of hooligans in a car slowing down and yelling at me, quite scary, until I realized they were trying to stop me riding down the on ramp to an N road.


Earlier in this thread I foolishly expressed the view (which I am now happy to modify) that American streets are not safe. I now accept that I was over-generalising and that it is possible to select safe-ish roads there. But it would be very "head-in the sand" to ignore the fact that the US has a murder rate substantially greater than that in the UK or any other Western European country. In the light of that, making a point of visiting run-down urban areas (as the OP suggests) seems like something that should only be done with care, if at all. After all, if most of the USA is no more dangerous than the UK (as some seem to suggest) the high murder rate must be concentrated somewhere.
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Re: America: the bizarre

Post by rualexander »

Pete Jack wrote:I wouldn't recommend a tour of Scotland to include East Kilbride either. I don't live far from Skid Row (the 'skid' refers to a chute they slid logs down about 120 years ago). The only cyclist I know who has come to harm in that area hit a manhole and fell off and broke his hip. The road surfaces around there were terrible. But lately the whole city is getting a lot more bike friendly. What's your point? Every biggish city on the planet has areas it's best to stay to stay away from. I once got my pocket picked in Valence, France. Does that mean the whole country should be avoided? In Normandy I had a gang of hooligans in a car slowing down and yelling at me, quite scary, until I realized they were trying to stop me riding down the on ramp to an N road.


On what basis would you not recommend East Kilbride?
This thread is largely about personal safety, not scenic or cultural highlights.
East kilbride is pefectly safe, but certainly not a tourist honeypot! Although being on a Sustrans national cycle network route makes it quite likely that some cycle tourists will pass through on their journeys.
PJ520
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Re: America: the bizarre

Post by PJ520 »

Sorry for slanging East Kilbride. Decades ago it had a reputation er... perhaps not unlike like Skid Row. A reason for staying away from seedy areas is not so much physical safety but psychological. I know it sounds head in sandish but going through a these places can cast a shadow over your whole tour. For example Darlington* is a lovely place but I wandered up a back street and came across kids there boozing at 9 am which I found most saddening. Though it's almost impossible to avoid saddening stuff. San Fransisco is another lovely place. A couple of weeks ago I was in a Starbucks there and was asked by a young lady after she'd scrounged a cup of coffee if I wanted to 'hang out', now what this meant I'm not quite sure but as she appeared to be in her early 20s and I am 71 she must have been hard up for somebody to hang out with.

Edit. Sorry Darlington it was Stockton.
Last edited by PJ520 on 31 Jan 2016, 7:03pm, edited 1 time in total.
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al_yrpal
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Re: America: the bizarre

Post by al_yrpal »

PWA glad you are now convinced that most US streets are safe. Go if you can, you will be enchanted by much of America. Its like the TV, only its not…

Al
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TonyR
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Re: America: the bizarre

Post by TonyR »

Pete Jack wrote:
TonyR wrote:
Pete Jack wrote:Would you extend that to tourist cycling through Skid Row or Florencia in LA? I agree with you in general but there are places you would be advised to stay clear of as a tourist unless accompanied by an experienced guide,
I wouldn't recommend a tour of Scotland to include East Kilbride either. I don't live far from Skid Row (the 'skid' refers to a chute they slid logs down about 120 years ago). The only cyclist I know who has come to harm in that area hit a manhole and fell off and broke his hip. The road surfaces around there were terrible. But lately the whole city is getting a lot more bike friendly. What's your point? Every biggish city on the planet has areas it's best to stay to stay away from. I once got my pocket picked in Valence, France. Does that mean the whole country should be avoided? In Normandy I had a gang of hooligans in a car slowing down and yelling at me, quite scary, until I realized they were trying to stop me riding down the on ramp to an N road.


I don't disagree that there are place all over the world you would be better to avoid if you are not familiar with them. There are such places in California and the rest of the USA which you are better to avoid as a tourist on a bike but that doesn't mean that there aren't vast tracts of the country that are safe and fantastic to cycle through. But to portray it as all safe for a visitor is misleading.
Sooper8
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Re: America: the bizarre

Post by Sooper8 »

Vorpal wrote:If America is bizarre, it is mainly in the lack of a social safety net that produces such neighborhoods.


+1
PJ520
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Re: America: the bizarre

Post by PJ520 »

al_yrpal wrote:PWA glad you are now convinced that most US streets are safe. Go if you can, you will be enchanted by much of America. Its like the TV, only its not…

Al
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mullinsm
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Re: America: the bizarre

Post by mullinsm »

I've never been to the US, but would love to tour there. On my recent trip to NZ I met a group of yanks from Iowa who were touring on a weird selection of bikes and got into conversation with them on the subject of biking in the US. They confirmed that there are many scary places - they mentioned Chicago in particular as a place to avoid - but that "you should be OK in the Mid-west".

A few days later I met a girl from Quebec who had toured all over Europe and I asked her if she had any experience of the US and she replied that she had started a tour of the Mid-west but abandoned it after a few days as she was scared for her safety. "There are guns everywhere. Everyone carries a gun. It's terrifying" She didn't strike me as the kind of girl who scared easily and as she comes from a country with a similar level of gun ownership to the US, I can't imagine she'd never seen one before.

I recently read a travelogue called The Road Headed West about a guy who cycled across the US. At one point he was invited to stay at someone's house and ended up fleeing for his life in the middle of the night when his host had a few too many and looked like he was going to start shooting.

A client of mine has lived and travelled in the US and I asked his opinion of the safety aspects of cycle touring there and he said to avoid cities altogether, but also remote areas. He mentioned that the Carolinas in particular have a reputation for people just "vanishing". "There are some very odd people around out in the sticks" is what he said. Finally, after much serious deliberation, he advised me not to bother at all.

I suppose you can get into scrapes anywhere and there are weirdoes in Europe too, but the ones in the US have guns. It's a shame though.....
mullinsm
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Re: America: the bizarre

Post by mullinsm »

According to Wiki, there are 112.6 guns per 100 people in the US. So, statistically speaking at least, everyone has a gun. I never said that she'd been to the US once. As a Canadian, she may have been many times. She tried cycle touring in the Mid-west once. Evidently it was enough for her.
mullinsm
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Re: America: the bizarre

Post by mullinsm »

Having read all of the above (and said some of it) I've just had a look at a few US cycle touring forums. Unless they're all liars, there seem to be lots of people in the US who engage in the activity of cycle touring in the US and didn't get murdered (yet).

I think I'll give it a go next year.......
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Re: America: the bizarre

Post by al_yrpal »

mullinsm wrote:According to Wiki, there are 112.6 guns per 100 people in the US. So, statistically speaking at least, everyone has a gun. I never said that she'd been to the US once. As a Canadian, she may have been many times. She tried cycle touring in the Mid-west once. Evidently it was enough for her.


I have even worse news for you, although all Americans dont have guns which gives a lie to what she says, all Americans except perhaps very young childen have access to knives, how scary is that?
I have no doubt what she said is true as far as she is concerned but its a gross distortion of the real situation re travel in America. Its the same there as it is here, if you knowingly go into a criminal neighbourhood you put yourself at risk.

Al
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iviehoff
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Re: America: the bizarre

Post by iviehoff »

Here's a list of countries by gun ownership per capita
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of ... by_country

US is top, but high up are Serbia, Switzerland and Sweden, which are not places you'd worry about this. You are far more likely to end up with a gun being pointed at you in anger in places like Honduras which are a long way down the list.

When I was in Guatemala, I was initially a bit scared when I saw a lot of people walking around with machetes. But of course they needed them for their field labour. I was also briefly scared in Argentina when a jeep bristling with guns sticking out everywhere came by, but they were looking for animals to eat.

Friends have cycled around the US, including notably gun-toting regions, and have not found it an issue. The reality is that most of the violence is gang violence and largely confined to dodgy parts of cities. The risk of banditry to the passing cycle tourist is low in the USA. There are many places, including Mexico next door, where it is much higher.
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Re: America: the bizarre

Post by kylecycler »

Make out of this what you will, from 'Cycling Forums' in the US: "How many of you carry a gun as part of your cycling equipment?" - all 221 pages...

http://www.cyclingforums.com/threads/ho ... nt.132888/

Even just browsing through it is quite an education, but remember they're cyclists just like us (more or less) except they live over there.

You'd have to read the whole of this thread to get a balanced view, but as Mark Beaumont found when he encountered families, friendliness and kindliness in Iran, I figure you'd have to go there to get the right picture. I'll never likely make it to the States, but if I did I'd just take it as I found it.
pwa
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Re: America: the bizarre

Post by pwa »

iviehoff wrote:Here's a list of countries by gun ownership per capita
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of ... by_country

US is top, but high up are Serbia, Switzerland and Sweden, which are not places you'd worry about this. You are far more likely to end up with a gun being pointed at you in anger in places like Honduras which are a long way down the list.

When I was in Guatemala, I was initially a bit scared when I saw a lot of people walking around with machetes. But of course they needed them for their field labour. I was also briefly scared in Argentina when a jeep bristling with guns sticking out everywhere came by, but they were looking for animals to eat.

Friends have cycled around the US, including notably gun-toting regions, and have not found it an issue. The reality is that most of the violence is gang violence and largely confined to dodgy parts of cities. The risk of banditry to the passing cycle tourist is low in the USA. There are many places, including Mexico next door, where it is much higher.


I am sure you are right about Mexico being much more dangerous. On a small point, I think gun ownership in Sweden and Switzerland is generally less of a concern because of the way those guns are viewed by the people who own them. As hunting tools (a bit like the traditional British shotgun) or as equipment for national defence. The worrying thing about US gun ownership is the emphasis on combat weapons in the hands of people who are not connected to the military. But we are comparing the US with other relatively safe, developed countries, not the riskier nations like Mexico.
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Re: America: the bizarre

Post by Vorpal »

pwa wrote:
I am sure you are right about Mexico being much more dangerous. On a small point, I think gun ownership in Sweden and Switzerland is generally less of a concern because of the way those guns are viewed by the people who own them. As hunting tools (a bit like the traditional British shotgun) or as equipment for national defence. The worrying thing about US gun ownership is the emphasis on combat weapons in the hands of people who are not connected to the military. But we are comparing the US with other relatively safe, developed countries, not the riskier nations like Mexico.

The emphasis on 'combat weapons' is limited to television, and gun rights campaigners. I grew up in the Midwestern USA, and I have never known anyone (not one single person) who carried a gun, unless it was part of their jobs, like the police. I knew lots of people, including some family who have hunting rifles that stay in a locked gun cabinet, except for when they were being cleaned, or used for hunting.
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